


The Birds and the 2Bs

by ZealousCrow



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: 2B is a stubborn android with Big Feelings, F/M, please excuse the awful puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 18:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10418706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZealousCrow/pseuds/ZealousCrow
Summary: 2B has a close encounter of the bird kind between missions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be about 500 words and purely be about a bird landing on 2B. Then somehow, after 6 whole days mostly consisting of me staring at a Word document for hours on end, this entire thing wrote itself. These two kind of spiralled out of my control and did what they felt like doing. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

2B isn’t sure what to make of quiet moments.

On the bunker, it’s one thing – it isn’t really downtime, so to speak, just a way to space apart missions, punctuated by briefing, debriefing, refuels, regular maintenance checks. There is always the promise (or maybe the threat) of being called to something urgent or direly important at any given second. It keeps her on her toes.

However, on the surface... the so-called calm feels anything but. Uneasy. Tense. Even running errands for the Resistance, at the very least, keeps her moving. The relative calm of the city ruins outside of combat just doesn’t feel right. She _is_ a combat model after all; built for the fight, capable of handling hour upon hour of machine carnage and the sensory overload that accompanies it. Right now, all she hears is a gentle breeze rustling through overgrown grass, interspersed with the calls of the hardy animals that have carved a home for themselves here. She annihilated the patrolling machines in this area hours ago, so she can’t even pick up the sounds of their slow, creaking limbs on her sensors.

She tenses each artificial muscle. Relaxes them again one by one. It’s incredibly strange to be in a situation like this. Her and 9S are usually in demand at all hours of the day, and then some, but right now they have literally no assignments. Not even a ‘fetch quest’, as 9S so sarcastically refers to them. A call to command revealed nothing out of the ordinary – there just coincidentally happens to be nothing of great enough importance to give to them.

It’s driving her a tiny bit mad. _Inhale, exhale._ 9S, somewhat infuriatingly, seems perfectly happy with the whole situation. He’s been scanning everything he can get a hold of – hacking into old world records, inspecting the flora and fauna, as well as dissecting each part of the stubby machines she destroyed on what can best be described as a bored whim.

And now he’s fishing. Fishing! _Damn scanners..._

“Y’know 2B, I’m pretty sure you’re scaring away the fish,” says 9S, completely nonchalant.

She flinches slightly, caught off-guard by the sudden break in the silence. “And what makes you think that?”

“I dunno... just a hunch. You’re pretty intense right now. Maybe the fish can feel how you’re glaring daggers at me? Maaaaybe they’re offended on my behalf?”

“Hmph.” 2B turns away slightly. “Fish don’t have feelings. And I am _not_ glaring.”

“Sure you aren’t. Just like you _totally_ aren’t sulking because I called you out for it.” He’s turned away, still focused on the river, but she knows he has a shit-eating grin on his face right now. This fact does not cause her to sulk more. No, not at all. She wasn’t even doing that in the first place, after all. Obviously.

“...Whatever.”

She resolves to not give him the satisfaction of knowing he proved his point.

 

* * *

 

 

Time passes slowly here. It’s hard to resist the temptation to slip into sleep mode, if just for a short while. But she knows she can’t. It would be irresponsible to leave 9S unprotected, and indeed to leave herself so vulnerable in hostile territory.

Instead, she turns her gaze skyward, attention caught by movement above. Shadows, in a V formation... machines? It’s unusual to see them flying so low. She considers dragging 9S away from his beloved fishing spot to go investigate – until he interrupts her, that is.

“Those are geese, 2B.”

“Are you hacking my thoughts right now?” she asks, incredulous.

“Hey, I’m a scanner, not a mind reader!” He laughs, mostly to himself, as if he’s made some kind of reference that she doesn’t understand and finds it hilarious. Definitely a scanner. He’s too… eccentric to not be. “It’s my job to be observant, you know. I could see you starting to move, and there’s no way I’m letting you rob me of the catch of a lifetime for the sake of some birds.”

“Since when do birds fly like that? It’s unnerving.” From all she’s seen, they fly in what can be best described as swarms – unorganised, chirping chaos - which in itself is fairly concerning, but she wouldn’t admit that. Combat models are _not_ afraid of such tiny, inconsequential creatures as birds.

“Well, as far as birds go, geese are pretty efficient. You see the ones at the front? They’re doing most of the work, reducing the wind resistance for the ones behind.” He points up at the formation, which is rapidly disappearing into the distance, and she does him the courtesy of looking interested, even though pointless facts like this mean little to someone like her. “They can fly for days by making use of this. The tired go to the back, and the strongest flyers lead the way. The strong always helping the weak. Pretty incredible for animals, don’t you think?”

9S turns and practically beams at her, and her resolve to be angry at him crumbles. How can she be, when he so earnestly cares about things others wouldn’t spare a second thought for?

“And where exactly did you find this out?”

“Oh!” He looks surprised, pleasantly so, that for once he isn’t getting brushed off. “It wasn’t difficult to find, actually. Humans held extensive records on the behaviours of animals, and in this case, these birds are migratory, so they also held data on their migration routes from—“

A large splash sounds from the river as something finally takes the bait and drags the deployed Pod underwater.

“—shit. Never mind that for now!”

He calls his Pod back but it’s clearly struggling to lift the fish out of water, much to his despair. 2B watches him stress out with mild amusement.

“Come on! You can fire a high-energy laser beam, slow time, and carry my weight for over 25 metres but you can’t catch a fish? What’s wrong with you!?”

“Query misunderstood. Analysis unavailable,” it pipes back in that ever so frustrating monotone.

To its credit, it does take the hint to try harder. Something enormous surfaces, and clearly its momentum hasn’t been taken into account because whatever it is goes flying, hitting 9S square in the chest. By some miracle, he manages to not fall flat on his backside.

“Catch confirmed: fresh. Koi carp, 130 centimetres.”

“2B, have you seen this thing?” He struggles to turn around to show it off, but she can hear genuine joy in his voice. “I told you this was a good spot!”

“I’d be worried if I couldn’t see it, honestly,” she responds, holding back a laugh at the sight in front of her. She already stands above 9S in stature – there’s no denying he’s small, and it works for scanners, they need the fuel efficiency – but the size of the carp he holds practically dwarfs him. He looks tiny in comparison.

She’ll hold this image in her memory always, even if one day he might forget.

“What are you going to do with it, anyway? Don’t tell me I have to help you gut it?” Even for someone well-versed in the gore of battle, the thought of dissecting something so… slimy (and still wriggling) is a disgusting concept.

“Eurgh. Even I’m not that gross, I promise,” he says, but in all honesty, she has trouble believing that. “I’ll take it back to the Resistance camp to sell. This has gotta be worth at least 10000. Could you do me a favour though and hold this thing for me, 2B?”

“You want me to touch. That.” No trace of humour. An eyebrow raises beneath her visor. He can’t see that, but he feels the effect of it regardless, so he puts on his best ‘kicked puppy’ expression.

“Pretty please? I just need a minute to store it properly, and I can’t do that with my hands full. It’s going to be difficult to get it to compress.”

Again, she faces the internal conflict of being unable to say no to this damn android.

“Fine. You’re paying to have these clothes cleaned, though.”

“Deal!” And with that, he immediately dumps the beast of a koi in her unready arms, almost causing her to drop it. Their hands brush during the exchange, and it causes a spike in her pulse that she doesn’t want to acknowledge. “It’ll be just a minute. I swear.”

Even through her thick gloves, she can feel it. Every core in her logic processor is telling her to drop it. She wishes she could. A deal is a deal, though. 9S is already lost in his operations, completely focused on the mammoth task of compressing something this big; it would be inadvisable to interrupt him.

That’s when she hears the approach of flapping wings, and a rapidly loudening bird’s cry.

Then a soft _wumph_ as something lands right on her shoulder.

She slowly turns her head and is met by a completely black bird – a crow, if she remembers right – which stares at her expectantly.

“What the fuck.” She freezes, staring back at it. “9S.”

He doesn’t so much as look up from what he’s doing. “Yeah, yeah, I’m almost done.”

“9S. Get this thing off of me.” It chirps at her, indignant.

Frustrated at her sudden impatience, he sighs. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

She can feel claws dig into her shoulders as it firms up its grip on her. In times like this, underhanded tactics are necessary. “ _Nines._ Please.”

His attention snaps upwards as the carp finally dissipates into storage; upon close inspection, she can see a slight flush of red across his cheeks. 2B feels a sting of embarrassment from giving in and dropping formality with him, but it was worth it, she reasons. Not for his reaction, definitely not. Just for the sake of resolving this situation quickly.

“O-oh,” he stammers, clearing his throat, “if you’d been more specific, I would have…”

“Now is not the time for that. Kindly make this thing leave.” Her calm tone belies the undercurrent of fear she feels increasing each second the bird sits there with its mysterious motives. Machines, she can understand. They either want to kill her, or they don’t. Animals make far less sense.

Composing himself, 9S summons out a killifish from their storage matrix and offers it to the crow, who quickly decides that a friendly offer of food is _far_ preferable to stiff and unwelcoming combat android, flying straight over to his outstretched hand and using him as a new perch. It snaps up the fish and caws softly, the closest they’ll hear to a ‘thank you’.

“There you go. Was that so bad?” He lifts his finger and inspects the bird, no doubt taking the chance to scan it for his personal records. “This little buddy was just hungry. I can’t believe you’re so scared of him, 2B!”

“I never said I was afraid of it,” she insists.

The look he gives her sees straight through that weak lie. “I don’t have to be a scanner _or_ a mind reader to see that, believe me.”

His newfound friend chirps to him in agreement, before finally taking its leave. He watches it, almost sadly, as it goes. Silence falls between them for a moment, tinged with relief but still somewhat awkward.

“So,” a hand goes to sheepishly touch the back of his neck. “You’re finally calling me Nines, huh?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

He smiles despite her cold response; it’s endearing, and it makes her heart ache. She knows she walks a narrow line, and the risk of her letting slip the feelings she still can’t figure out mounts each day.

“Of course not. But… at the very least, can we stay here a little longer? I’m kind of enjoying not having to play Resistance lackey right now.”

_Will I ever learn how to say no to him…?_

“Alright. But the moment we’re called for, we’re leaving.” It sounds like a massive compromise, but really it’s one of the easiest decisions she’s ever made. Impulsively, she reaches forward and places a hand on his shoulder. Warmth spreads through her from the point of contact, and it strengthens her conviction to tease him just a little. “Just remember Nines, you still owe me those clean clothes.”

The blush that spreads across his cheeks as he struggles to process everything happening is priceless.

_Probably not, but at least… at least we can have this._

**Author's Note:**

> needs more geese


End file.
